MacOS – Disable Spotlight Index on 10.8 on Specific Volumes

macosspotlightterminal

To switch off indexing in Terminal I use:

sudo mdutil -a -i off

This disables it with the -a switch across all volumes and the -i off part turns "off" the indexing.

If connected to my iMac is the following volumes:

/Volumes
  /MacintoshHD
  /BOOTCAMP
  /NAS6TB

How do I specifically turn off the indexing service only for /BOOTCAMP and /NAS6TB? I tried following the instructions in the man page, but they weren't very clear.

Best Answer

From terminal type:

sudo mdutil -i off [mountpoint]

If you need to remove the index cache of a network drive that has been stored locally, then use the -p flag. Likewise, to remove the local cache of a locally attached volume, use the -E flag.

If you want to delete from /BOOTCAMP then you would use:

sudo mdutil -Ei off "/Volumes/BOOTCAMP"

NOTE: Quotations around the mountpoint of the volume are unnecessary if there are no spaces in the volume name or mountpoint. Otherwise you would need to use an escape character \ before each space.

e.g. sudo mdtuil -Ei off /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD for "Macintosh HD"

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